Fence

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  Harvard was walking and staring at the ground, with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie, but when he saw Seiji, he smiled. The captain had a nice smile, steadying as a hand on your elbow.

  “Are you looking for someone, Captain?”

  “I was looking for my team,” said Harvard. “How’s camp so far, Seiji?”

  “It’s fine,” said Seiji.

  It wasn’t a lie. Seiji had enjoyed practice bouts against fencers who were on his level. Camp Menton itself was fine. The problem wasn’t the camp; it was that Seiji was in the worst group, and Jesse was a witness to Seiji’s humiliation.

  He wasn’t going to complain to Harvard about that. They were a team, and his captain had done nothing wrong.

  “How’s Nicholas?”

  “I assume he’s fine,” said Seiji. “I haven’t spoken to him since he lost the match against Bastien. I told him he’d embarrassed himself, and I left.”

  Seiji was familiar with the type of pause that followed. It was the type of pause that happened when someone wanted badly to tell you that you’d made a social error.

  “Uh… maybe you hurt Nicholas’s feelings by telling him he was embarrassing. Nobody feels good right after losing a match.”

  Seiji frowned. “I hurt Nicholas’s feelings?”

  When Seiji risked a glance up at Harvard, he didn’t look as if he were judging Seiji. He looked earnest, in the same way Harvard did back in the Kings Row salle when he was instructing Nicholas on a move and very much wanted him to listen.

  Seiji was glad to have Harvard as his captain, even though Harvard needed to work on his low lines. He would rather have Harvard as his captain than anybody else.

  “Sometimes our friends can hurt us worse than anybody,” the captain said, his voice very soft. “Your opinion matters to Nicholas. He doesn’t want to embarrass you.”

  “Then he needs to get better at fencing!”

  Harvard sighed. “He’s getting better every day. And you’re helping him get better. But when you lose a match or—or something else important to you—sometimes you feel bad, and you want your friends to be there for you.”

  When you lose a match, sometimes you feel bad. In Seiji’s experience, that wasn’t true. Usually, when Seiji lost a match, even if he was frustrated by failure, he could appreciate the opportunity to learn by fencing a worthy opponent.

  Except… there had been that one match, when he’d lost against Jesse. He hadn’t felt frustration or appreciation then. What he’d felt had been too many emotions, too tangled and hot and terrible to name, tangled like a ball of live wires in Seiji’s chest.

  Would he have wanted Nicholas to be there for him, the day he lost to Jesse? Obviously not at the time, as he hadn’t known Nicholas, and he didn’t enjoy strangers.

  But if he had known Nicholas, perhaps that might have been all right. He wouldn’t have been by himself in the empty hall afterward, still in his fencing whites, staring down at his empty hands.

  “Just something to think about,” said Harvard, then he guided Seiji toward one of the picnic tables, where Nicholas, Bobby, and Dante were all assembled, even though it wasn’t a mealtime. “Hey, here you all are. Looking good, everyone.”

  Seiji was thankful the captain had complimented the others. Seiji couldn’t have done it. Bobby was dressed in a top adorned with red-apple and white-star sequin patterns, which was very colorful, but colors generally suited Bobby. Dante looked much the same as usual, though he’d tamed his dark wavy hair a little.

  Nicholas was the problem. He looked extremely strange. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a non-uniform blazer over it, and he was holding his body stiffly as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted the blazer to touch him. Worse than that, he’d turned his hair into a bizarre, rigid sculpture. Usually, Nicholas’s hair fell into his face in a soft brown messy swoop, but now it was pushed off his face in a flat shape. This made him not seem like Nicholas at all.

  If Seiji had hurt Nicholas’s feelings when Nicholas lost his match, immediately telling Nicholas he looked awful was probably not the move. He sat down silently on the bench beside Nicholas instead. Dante and Bobby were on the other side of the table, so maybe Nicholas had saved this seat for him.

  Bobby beamed at the compliment. “Thanks, Harvard! We heard the trainees mingle after dinner and got dressed up to make a good impression.”

  Seiji glanced uneasily down at his own clothes. Perhaps he was the one who’d gotten things wrong.

  “I look the same as usual.”

  Nobody had told him this was a formal gathering. He could go and put on one of his suits if it was required, as it was with certain drinks receptions, but nobody else was wearing a suit.

  “Yeah, so you look cool already,” said Nicholas.

  “Mmm,” said Bobby, going bright red.

  Seiji edged closer to Nicholas. He wished Bobby didn’t dislike him so much. It made everything very awkward.

  “We’re making get-well cards for Eugene,” Nicholas told him, nudging pencils and paper Seiji’s way. “Wanna draw one?”

  Seiji gave some thought to what Eugene would like best on his card, and he drew a careful picture of protein shake ingredients, with a list by the side to show that the drawing was accurate. He folded the picture and wrote, Recover soon. Then he considered the matter some more and added Bro, because Eugene would like that.

  Bobby and Dante squinted doubtfully as though they thought Seiji’s card was weird.

  “Oh, cool card,” said Nicholas, hanging all over him in the way Nicholas did, which Seiji didn’t dislike. “Eugene will be into it.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Seiji was pleased to be vindicated.

  Harvard had sat down to make a card as well. “Good effort earlier, Nicholas.”

  “I lost, like, really badly,” said Nicholas with a touch of gloom. “Everyone’s laughing at me.”

  “They’re stupid, then,” said Harvard. “So what if you lost? I’m sure I’d lose against Bastien, too. You were brave enough to try.”

  Bobby and Dante admired the card Harvard was making Eugene. “That’s such a nice message!” Bobby told Harvard.

  So Seiji took this opportunity to talk quietly to Nicholas.

  “When you lost the match earlier today…,” said Seiji, “was that—bad?”

  “It wasn’t good,” said Nicholas. “Like, literally nobody thought I did well.”

  “No, I mean… what I said. I was thinking, I should have offered more constructive criticism. I might have started by explaining to you what you did wrong.”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Yeah, you could’ve done that.”

  “You did practically everything wrong,” Seiji explained. “I wasn’t sure where to start.”

  “Yup, total disaster,” Nicholas agreed easily. “Still, I’ll do better next time. Every match is an opportunity to learn.”

  Seiji nodded. “I think so, too.”

  “Right,” said Nicholas. “It’s chill.”

  They were both chill. That was good. Beyond the safety of the picnic table, though, there were twinkly lights being turned on. The air was filled with the scent of garlic bread and the rich savory smells of beef bourguignonne and chicken chasseur. After dinner the gathering would begin, and soon Jesse would come.

  “Since you don’t speak French”—Seiji cleared his throat—“you should stay beside me.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  Seiji hesitated. “Promise you’ll do that.”

  “Sure,” said Nicholas. “I promise.”

  21 AIDEN

  Aren’t you sure of Aiden, Captain?” Eugene asked from within the infirmary.

  Harvard’s silence in response to that question echoed throughout the hall. Anyone who happened to be walking by might learn of Harvard’s lack of confidence in his best friend.

  Aiden’s hand stilled on the handle of the infirmary door. Whatever. He shouldn’t check up on Eugene, because Eugene didn’t need him. Eugene had Harvard to comfort
him. Nobody was better at that than Harvard, so Aiden didn’t even have to try. Aiden turned around and shoved the ghastly handful of weight-lifting magazines he’d collected at a startled nurse. Then he showed himself out.

  Nobody else had much confidence in Aiden, but he’d always thought Harvard saw him differently. Saw him less the way he was and more the way he hoped to be. Only, of course, Harvard didn’t see him differently at all. That was why Harvard had turned him down.

  It was fine, Aiden told himself. It was nothing he didn’t know already.

  “Oh, hello there,” said some French guy, strolling up to Aiden. “You look nice.”

  “Yes, that isn’t a new thing for me,” Aiden said absently.

  The boy smiled. “Ready for our date?”

  “Our what?” Aiden demanded irritably. “Who are you?”

  The boy smiled wider as though he understood Aiden was playing a game, and he enjoyed the game, too. “I’m Bastien. I beat Nicholas Cox for you this morning. I’m thinking we could get dinner?”

  Oh yes. He had offered that date. One more in a long list of terrible decisions Aiden had made.

  Aiden said in a silky voice, “I’m thinking you should get lost.”

  The cute French guy blinked.

  “Seems we have a lot in common,” said Aiden. “I, too, think it’s hilarious to make a show of beating someone younger and considerably less skilled than me.”

  The boy licked his lips. “I didn’t think about it that way. If you’re mad about that…”

  “Oh no,” said Aiden. “I’m a terrible bully myself. But I didn’t enjoy seeing my teammate get mocked by European fencers.”

  “Let me make it up to you.”

  “Go make it up to Nicholas,” Aiden snapped. “If I want to be with someone nasty and pretty, I can look in a mirror. I have no interest in wasting time with a second-rate copy of me. And I’ve already forgotten your name.”

  He stormed off. Harvard was being the perfect captain and looking after his teammates, so it was safe for Aiden to go back to their room and retrieve Harvard Paw. It was a comfort to hold on to him. Also, perhaps if he walked around holding on to a stuffed animal, people would stop bothering him.

  When he came down to dinner, people still bothered him.

  It was absurd what people would let you get away with, just because you were ridiculously good-looking.

  “You’re a true original,” some guy told him.

  No, Aiden thought, I am a clearly disturbed individual carrying a stuffed animal through France.

  Aiden shrugged. “Well, I’m not a reproduction. People have tried and failed to make copies.”

  He fussed around with his teddy bear, propping it up against a water glass, then realized his mistake when Harvard came to find him. He wished he could hide the bear. It was fine if everyone at Camp Menton thought he was weird, but he didn’t want Harvard to know he was pathetic.

  “Hey, Aiden. I was looking for you.”

  “I can’t have dinner with the team,” Aiden told him hastily. “I’m having too much fun with Vlad from Hungary here.”

  “Victor,” said the guy. “From Holland.”

  “Don’t be difficult, Viggo,” said Aiden.

  Unfortunately, the guy chose this moment to have some self-respect. He rose and stomped off, leaving Aiden alone with his best friend. Of all the nerve.

  “This is why it would never have worked between us, Valentino,” Aiden called after him.

  When he glanced up at Harvard, he found Harvard already gazing down at him. Harvard was probably thinking about Aiden’s worthless ways.

  “I’ve already had dinner with the team. The older trainees are allowed down into the town,” Harvard said. “Wanna come with me?”

  Yes.

  “Sorry, I have a date,” Aiden bit out.

  “With who?”

  Aiden made a dismissive gesture. “You know I never remember their names.”

  Harvard took a deep breath, then said, “Cancel it.”

  Aiden closed his hand on the bear’s stuffed arm, unobtrusively, behind his plastic water glass. Harvard didn’t mean that the way it sounded.

  “I think it would be good for us,” said Harvard, heartbreakingly earnest. “A chance to—get back to being best friends.”

  “Don’t you think our bond is unbreakable, buddy?” Aiden made himself laugh.

  Harvard didn’t laugh. He stood there looking steadily down at him, as sincere as Aiden was insincere.

  “Yeah, I do,” he said, making Aiden’s joke serious. “Come with me, Aiden. Please.”

  Aiden went. He didn’t stand a chance against Harvard. He never had.

  It was a beautiful evening on the Riviera. Aiden was walking down the Esplanade des Sablettes with the boy he loved, trying desperately to think of a way out of this situation.

  The issue was, Aiden thought with gathering unease, their surroundings were picturesque and romantic. The sun was low in the sky, turning the Mediterranean into a wash of gold and tinting the mountains beyond purple, and happy couples seemed to be decorating the esplanade like the palm trees that lined the walkway. People were holding hands, all in love.

  He’d held Harvard’s hand a few times when they were pretending to date. Harvard had reached out and held his hand first, and it had felt as if nobody had ever done it before.

  Now the back of Aiden’s hand brushed against Harvard’s, and Harvard jerked back as if Aiden were a scorpion who’d stung him.

  Aiden clung to Harvard Paw, lifted his free hand, and pointed desperately at a stall. “Ice cream!” he said. “Let’s get ice cream.”

  Once they were at the front of the line, Aiden put on his reading glasses to study the menu. He didn’t wear reading glasses on dates, only when he was comfortable and didn’t care about being more attractive than usual. Then Aiden proceeded to be disgusting and inconsiderate.

  “I will have the lemon sorbet, and he will have”—Aiden searched among the ice creams and found the obvious winner—“the fig and foie gras ice cream,” Aiden declared grandly in French.

  Harvard rolled his eyes, fond. “My friend’s joking. I’ll have the blood orange sorbet.”

  Spoken in Harvard’s low serious voice, French was sexy, Aiden thought with horror. Aiden hadn’t heard Harvard speak French before. How could his best friend betray him by speaking French in France?

  They’d always planned to go together. Aiden had been to France before, obviously—he was a spoiled rich kid whose dad had a yacht in Menton—but he’d never been to France with Harvard before. He’d last visited France with… some guy? Aiden didn’t recall. Last summer Harvard had cruelly abandoned Aiden to go to France with his parents and learned to ride a motorcycle.

  No, Aiden told his treacherous brain. Do not think about the motorcycle.

  They ate their ice cream in an awkward silence. He and Harvard had never had an awkward silence before. Aiden didn’t even dare look at him.

  Aiden had always known that if he ever pursued anything with Harvard, he would ruin the best thing in his life. Well, here was ruin.

  Aiden searched his mind frantically for some way to prove to his own disordered mind that this wasn’t a date. Flirting with other people! If he flirted with other people, everything would work out.

  He heard a click of high heels behind him and whipped around to give his latest pursuer a melting look.

  He went for maximum purr. “Mademoiselle?”

  “Madame,” corrected the woman of around fifty, who was wearing a gray power suit. “Very flattered, but happily married, and you’re a touch young for me. What I wanted to say was, I’m a scout for a modeling agency. May I give you my card? You’re a stunning young man, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”

  “They don’t,” said Aiden morosely.

  Well, that was a disaster. Harvard was laughing as Aiden threw the card in the trash. Aiden shoved Harvard’s shoulder, then pulled back his hand and stuffed it into the back pocket
of his own jeans. Harvard’s shoulders weren’t safe.

  “Wow, don’t sulk. The nice lady thought you were a stunning young man,” Harvard said, his voice sweet and affectionate. Aiden wished Harvard would just stab him.

  Instead, Aiden tried to keep up the joke. He batted his lashes. “What do you think?”

  Oh yes, Aiden. What a good joke. Extremely hilarious.

  Had Aiden teasing Harvard always sounded like flirting? Was he being pathetic now, or had he been pathetic this whole time?

  Maybe Harvard was just noticing how pathetic Aiden was now. Harvard went conspicuously silent. Aiden bit down on his lip hard.

  Someone tugged on Aiden’s sleeve and said, in a small shy voice, “Pretty.”

  “I know,” Aiden snarled, whipping around. That was no use to him at all. Harvard didn’t care, so why did everyone keep bothering him about it?

  A small child of indeterminate gender in a sailor suit, with curling brown lovelocks, was holding up a black-and-white stuffed toy for Aiden’s inspection. Guilt struck Aiden down with a terrible and relentless hand.

  “I have a bear, too,” said the little kid.

  Overcome by remorse, Aiden went down on one knee so that he could properly admire the bear. “I see,” he said. “Very handsome.”

  “My mom gave me him,” confided the kid, glancing up at the woman with bold red lipstick, who was holding their hand.

  Aiden flashed her a grin. “That was nice of her.”

  “Who gave you your bear?” asked the kid, studying Harvard Paw’s beret with fascination. Aiden had wanted Harvard to be dressed for the occasion.

  “My best friend, Harvard,” Aiden told the kid, slanting his grin Harvard’s way.

  Except Harvard wasn’t looking at him. He was looking in entirely the opposite direction. He’d caught sight of Arune and a couple of MLC boys and was waving determinedly to get their attention.

  Aiden’s stomach curdled, sour. Great. Arune was here.

  “That was nice of your friend,” said the kid.

  It had been. Everything about Harvard was nice. Harvard had been the tallest boy in class then, the same way he was now, and Aiden had been small and pathetic. He’d just wanted to follow Harvard around and had used the bear as an excuse, but then Harvard had smiled so warmly it made Aiden forget all the cold echoes of his vast empty home, and he offered Aiden the bear to keep for his own.